The pistol is back from SACS and has already seen one long day of practice.

The whole trip to the mothership and back took sixteen days. As Springfield customer service always does, they covered overnight shipping in both directions. According to the work order, Springfield recut the slide stop notch, installed a new extended 9mm ejector, and restaked the plunger tube. Everything was covered under Springfield’s lifetime warranty, of course. The entire process was as easy as it could be for me as a customer.

The broken ejector had already been counted in the report tally but as SACS performed a repair on the slide, I’ve added that as well so now the total under parts breakages is three.

So is it fixed?

Absolutely. The gun devoured almost 1,100 rounds on Friday without a hiccup of any kind. To make sure the slide was cycling and locking back properly regardless of recoil impulse I tested it with three different loads: American Eagle AE9DP (115gr FMJ standard pressure), CCI 54882 (124gr mil-spec leadfree FMJ), and my carry ammo P9HST3 (124gr +p JHP).

As the photo at left shows, a couple of minor but noteworthy changes happened on Friday. First, purely on aesthetic grounds I’ve swapped out my desert tan VCD Grips for the black set that had been living on the backup gun. Regardless of color, these things continue to be the racetrack performance tire of the 1911 world as far as I’m concerned providing tremendous grip and recoil management regardless of whether you’re wet, dry, or on fire*.

Second, I’ve gone back to using the JM Custom Kydex aiwb holster. If I’m honest it’s a little less comfortable and a little less concealing than the 5 Shot Leather SME which still remains probably the best overall appendix holster I’ve ever used. But for the 1911, the SME holds the gun so tight against the body that it’s a bit difficult to get the grip I want before drawing. Well, I say for the 1911 but perhaps it would be more appropriate to say for the 1911 for a guy with a gut but I’d much rather blame the holster than my lifestyle so…

The difference is that the JMCK gives me about two tenths of a second faster draw and, when I’m really pushing at maximum speed, less chance of a fumble or delay. And because I’m going to Bob Vogel’s World Class Pistol Skills class this coming weekend the speed issue is foremost in my mind all the sudden.

On a side note, during the two weeks that the test gun was in Geneseo I put almost 1,500 rounds through the backup SACS/Warren pistol, serial -16. Like the -17 test gun, it quickly became apparent that the gun needed an upgrade from the stock 12# recoil spring to the variable 14# spring that Jason Burton recommended months ago. It took two feed stoppages for me to figure that out, though.

This next week will see quite a few rounds downrange working up to the much anticipated Vogel class. Check back for Report #20 which will include a full write-up on the class and the 35,000th birthday of the gun that no one thought would work!

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

* Setting yourself on fire to test this claim is done solely at the reader’s risk.

Robbie — Looks like very little metal was removed. I’ll have to get out the calipers and compare with the backup gun. They didn’t provide info on the test firing but my guess is that it was less than a box of ammo. Still, I cannot document it so it doesn’t count toward the gun’s count.

Marc — I was having some issues with the slide not staying locked back and while it was at least partially due to my grip there’s certainly no reason why the metal should be rolling over at that point.